GDPR gets real

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GDPR GETS REAL — “GDPR is still a theory,” Dean Garfield, president and CEO of tech trade group ITI, told MT in the run-up to Europe’s landmark privacy regulation taking effect. As of today, theory becomes practice. A grab-bag of ideas about the future of online data, many untested, now comprise the rules of the road for the internet in Europe. Now the focus turns to its practical effects on users and companies there — and what it means back in the U.S., where talk of an “American GDPR” is starting to bubble up.

The tech industry, which seemed untouchable in Washington for much of the last decade, is on its back foot as that conversation percolates. GDPR was put into motion two years ago, but it takes effect at a time when Silicon Valley’s reputation is under fire.

“When the European privacy law takes effect, the American people are going to wonder why they are getting second-class privacy protections,” Markey said in a statement. “If companies can afford to protect Europeans’ privacy, they can also afford to do so for their American customers and users.”

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) sent letters of his own to the CEOs of Google, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Snapchat, Airbnb and Fitbit asking them whether they’ll be making any changes to ensure user privacy once GDPR is in effect. “I don’t understand how we’ve reached a point where we, in the United States, are reliant on a foreign regulation to protect our data,” Rush said in a statement.

— Also on Thursday, 28 consumer and public-interest groups wrote a letter urging some of the world’s largest companies — such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, JPMorgan Chase and Walmart — to adopt core elements of GDPR even beyond Europe. “Strong privacy standards should apply to everyone who uses online platforms and services no matter where they live,” they write. The letter is signed by Color of Change, the Center for Digital Democracy, the Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, among others.

— Facebook, for one, says it plans to do just that. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told attendees of the 2018 Viva Technology conference in Paris on Thursday that Facebook plans to extend privacy changes it has made as a result of GDPR to other parts of the world in the coming weeks. "Now that we've done that in Europe, we want to make sure everyone around the world has the same strong controls,” Zuckerberg said. Facebook officials have previously said they plan to make GDPR-style protections available worldwide but that they may not look the same in every country.

The principles behind GDPR are “values we have always shared,” Zuckerberg said in Paris — despite intense scrutiny about how Facebook handles and protects the data of its users. “Good regulation,” he continued, can reinforce public trust in digital and social networks, and he said GDPR can “be a step in that direction.”

I’M VLADIMIR, AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE — As promised, Facebook launched new political advertising disclosures on Thursday, including on issue ads — those that deal with a political topic but not a particular candidate or election — which had been used by Russia-linked accounts to spread misinformation in the 2016 election, Nancy reports. “We’re up against smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who change their tactics as we spot abuse,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management, said in a blog post. “But we believe that [the changes] will help prevent future interference in elections on Facebook.”

— What’s new? Facebook highlighted a few key changes to how it handles disclosures. First, all election-related and issue ads that appear on Facebook or Instagram will include a disclosure identifying who paid for the ad. Clicking on the label will bring the user to a site that offers more information, including “the campaign budget associated with an individual ad and how many people saw it — including their age, location and gender.” The database will be available to users worldwide here, where they can search ads by issue area or advertiser. Advertisers will also have to verify with Facebook that they actually live in the U.S. before they’ll be allowed to run political ads directed at Americans.

— Coming soon: Twitter will unveil its own set of disclosure requirements for political ads sometime this summer, it announced Thursday. Much like Facebook, Twitter plans to mark political advertising with identifying badges and include information on the advertisers behind the ads. Issue ads will be covered under a separate policy down the road.

POLITICO and the South China Morning Post are partnering to expand coverage of U.S.-China relations. Read our note from POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown to learn more.

CARPER SAYS HOLD THE PHONE — Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) is urging the Defense Department to look into ways to better secure President Donald Trump’s cell phone, following a POLITICO report earlier this week that Trump has been using a phone not equipped with sophisticated security features to protect his communications. “This is all the more concerning in light of reports indicating that President Trump has urged world leaders to contact him directly through his smartphone and that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s personal smartphone was compromised for months,” Carper said in a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

— This isn’t the first time Carper has asked Mattis to get more information on the president’s smartphone use. He sent a similar letter in February 2017, which Carper says went unanswered. Carper has asked that Mattis respond to his new letter by June 8, POLITICO’s Rebecca Morin reports.

GOING HAM FOR HAM RADIO— Lawmakers are making a multi-pronged push to drive the bipartisan Amateur Radio Parity Act through Congress and finally bypass objections from top Senate Commerce Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida, whose allegiance to his state’s homeowners’ associations drove his panel to yank the bill from consideration last fall. The legislation, H.R. 555, would direct the FCC to let amateur radio operators get around private rules, like those imposed by some HOAs, that keep them from putting up radio antennas. The measure cleared the House by voice vote in January 2017 and in the previous Congress.

— House appropriators tucked the amateur radio provisions into the fiscal 2019 Financial Services funding bill that cleared the subcommittee Thursday. It’s also now wrapped into the House’s national defense authorization bill, which passed the House by a wide margin that same morning. House sponsor Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) “is hopeful that Senator Nelson will see its value,” said his spokeswoman. “There are more than 750,000 licensed amateur radio operators in the country, including nearly 20,000 in Illinois and nearly 42,000 in Florida. … When disaster strikes and the power goes out, like when Hurricane Irma hit Sen. Nelson’s home state of Florida back in September, amateur radio operators become critical to emergency response efforts.”

— Senators appropriators haven’t signaled any decisions on whether to follow the House’s lead. “It would suit me,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the radio bill’s Senate sponsor, told John. “I think we’ve done enough that Senator Nelson’s concerns should have been answered.” Wicker and Nelson are also both senior members of the Armed Services Committee, which oversees the NDAA. Nelson’s office didn’t comment this week but last year told POLITICO that homeowners’ associations fear the amateur radio bill is overly broad, confusing and liable to cause litigation over antenna installation.

BROADBAND MAPPING ANGER YIELDS LEGISLATION — Wicker’s gripes about inaccurate FCC broadband mapping prompted his introduction Thursday of the Mobile Accuracy and Precision Broadband Act along with Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). The legislation centers on the FCC’s map determining eligibility for its upcoming Mobility Fund wireless subsidy auction. The auction will determine the recipients of billions of dollars in 4G LTE subsidies over 10 years. Wicker and his cosponsors propose tweaks such as giving wireless carriers and state and local governments more time to challenge the accuracy of the map. The Competitive Carriers Association, representing smaller wireless companies, immediately lauded the bill. The FCC posted an updated version of the map earlier this week but noted the “updates do not alter the eligibility status of 99.87 percent of the total area (both eligible and ineligible areas) shown on the first version of the map.”

THE BUFFERING ICON ON THE BUS GOES ROUND AND ROUND — Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) have introduced a bill that would equip school buses with wireless internet. The duo hopes the measure would let students who may not have broadband at home use their time on the bus to go online and study or finish homework. “It’s time to end the homework gap,” Udall said in a statement. “Our legislation will help give all students the ability to get online to study and do homework assignments while they’re on the bus — a common sense, 21st century solution.” Under the legislation, schools that place Wi-Fi on school buses would be reimbursed through the FCC’s E-Rate program, which supports broadband and telecom services in schools and libraries.

CORRECTION: The May 24 edition of Morning Tech misstated Tekedra Mawakana's new title. She is now Waymo's chief external officer.

SILICON VALLEY MUST-READS

California court rules on social media: The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Facebook and other social media companies can be compelled to hand over public user content to criminal defendants, the Associated Press reports.

Apple scores long-awaited court victory: Apple won $539 million in damages from Samsung after a nearly seven-year battle over smartphone technology, Bloomberg writes.

Time for tech to come forward?: The Senate’s version of the defense authorization bill would force tech companies to “disclose if they allowed American adversaries, like Russia and China, to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military,” according to Reuters.

TRANSITIONS

Gary Davis, currently the head of privacy for Apple in Europe, will serve as the company’s data protection officer under GDPR.

QUICK DOWNLOADS

— Trump’s tech relationship: Trump’s fraught relationship with Silicon Valley could be good news for the rest of the world as tech company look abroad for a warmer government reception, Fortune writes.

— Facebook closes its wallet: Facebook said Thursday that it will not compensate users caught in the Cambridge Analytica data debacles, according to the Associated Press.

— T-Mobile’s overshare bug: A newly uncovered bug in T-Mobile’s website could allow people to access personal account details of any T-Mobile customer using their cell phone number alone. More from ZDNet.

— Alexa, don’t send that: A Portland family says their Amazon Echo device recorded a private conversation and shared the audio with a random person in their contact list. More from AP.

— Technology’s newest innovators: This New York Times piece takes a look at how innovators are using technology in novel ways, like flagging bots on Twitter or building a text message-based crisis hotline for a phone call-averse generation.

About The Author : Aubree Eliza Weaver

Aubree Eliza Weaver is a deputy production director for POLITICO Pro, having previously served as a senior web producer. Aubree also co-authors Morning Money, POLITICO's daily morning newsletter on Washington and Wall Street.

She graduated from Le Moyne College in her hometown of Syracuse, N.Y., where she was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Dolphin. As a student, she interned with Time Warner Cable’s Syracuse affiliate, YNN, as a news broadcast intern. Aubree moved to D.C. upon graduating in 2013 to work as a summer program adviser for the Institute on Political Journalism. She was a student in the program in the summer of 2011, when she first fell in love with D.C.